Weddingbee Blog

Have I ever mentioned how much I love Etsy? Well, I totally do! It’s allowed me to find totally unique, completely adorable gifts for my favorite girls.

So, cute clutches, check! Next on the list—earrings!

I wanted something unique. Different from the typical pearls or crystals. Luckily, my favorite friend Etsy came to my rescue with these sweet little beauties, courtesy of seller Ben and Oliver:

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Everyone has gotten their invites, so here they are!

On first impression:

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Hello, hive! Mr. Taffy and I are back, rested, and ready to bring on the marital bliss! I don’t have any pro teasers yet, but here is one of my favorite guest photos to give you a sneak peek.

I love that my cousin captured Mom Taffy’s profile in the shot.

I am very pleased to report that our wedding was full of fun, love and happiness. I always scoffed when people told us that our wedding would be one of the happiest days of our lives. I assumed that they meant that it would be the best moment together in our relationship, and that we should expect things to go downhill after this one special day. Not the most encouraging thought for the bride to be.
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My mother, sister, and I arrived at La Fogata fashionably late. Upon arrival I was instantly overwhelmed by the sheer number of people scattered about. The restaurant was filled to capacity with the familiar faces of friends and family milling around, laughing and chatting excitedly. It was a beautiful thing.
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Over the last few weeks I’ve been thinking about what beverages we will be serving and how much we’ll need. I looked over our list of guests and came up with a breakdown of who thought would drink what. Then I played with several online beverage calculators and came up with the following beverage needs:

• 2 cases of both red and white
• 3-4 bottles of Pimm’s
• 3-4 bottles of Gin
• 1.5 cases of bubbly
• 1 keg of beer
• Assorted 2 liter bottles of soft drinks

We have a budget of about $720.

Our red wine selection is only $6 a bottle. When we had it, we were surprised it wasn’t a $8 or $9 wine. We’re buying the gin at the Coast Guard station and are hoping they carry Pimm’s too. If not, we can buy it at the state liquor store or have some of our European visitors bring it in for us.

Over the weekend, we visited a wine shop our rehearsal dinner caterer suggested. They recommended the $6 Cabernet Sauvignon we really like.

The visit was OK, but a little shocking. The person who helped us obviously knew his wine; he suggested some good wines we could try in the $8 range. The shocking part? The amount of wine he thought we needed.
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A few weeks ago, I had a dress fitting at a local tailor. I went alone and was really excited. I hadn’t tried my dress on in months, but I knew it needed a bustle. The rest, I figured, was in the tailor’s hands. I wish I had a sweet story to tell you, but to put it nicely, the appointment was a disaster. How? Let me count the ways.

First off, L.A. was experiencing scorching 100 degree weather, and the place had no air conditioning. In short, I was a sweaty mess before we even started. But I needed to get fitted, so I changed into my dress behind the severely shortened curtain and scooted my way out. The first words out of the tailor’s mouth after he looked me up and down with a judgmental eye…

“Is that your wedding dress?”

Umm, no sir, it’s not my wedding dress. Actually it’s a big flowy ivory gown with a train that I plan to wear out clubbing. What a stupid question. Sorry, but it was a stupid question said in a very condescending way. Strike one.

Then, I told him that I would need a bustle.
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I know it’s been a while since I’ve blogged about any DIY projects. That doesn’t mean there hasn’t been plenty of crafting going on at Casa Yorkie. Here’s one project that I’ve been holding off on posting about until I was able to get a decent photo of the final product… no thanks to the perpetually rainy weather lately.

Next weekend (when the skies miraculously dry up), our ceremony will take place on the beach. Considering the sand, a traditional paper or fabric aisle runner just won’t do the trick. From the start, I’d had in mind something made of natural fibers that would fit in well with our tropical setting. I quickly learned that what I wanted was called lampac, a material made of woven grass, often used in tiki-style decor. The only problem was that a 3’x26’ roll cost WAY more than I was willing to pay. On a rare trip to Walmart (that place makes my head ache!), I spotted exactly what I needed: woven beach mats! At $5 a pop, I was a happy Yorkie!

Over the past few months, friends have joked that I’ll be crafting my way down the aisle. In a way, they’re exactly right!
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On Friday, we were invited to have dessert with some friends. I made these ice cream cupcakes to take along and share.

They are really easy to make.

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I’ll let you in on a little secret: Mr. HC has a serious case of POFAD (”put off for another day”) syndrome. Two months after our wedding, he still hasn’t sent out his thank you notes yet! Oy.

But when he finally gets around to doing it, he’ll have these three designs to choose from:

For our wedding, I’d Goccoed tags with “thanks” in English, Chinese, and Hebrew to attach to our favors.
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There comes a time in wedding planning when you morph into a semi-professional writer. No, I’m not talking about wedding blogging - I’m talking about writing your vows! These are your vows, so the caliber of writing is generally a bit above 7th grade English class.

The vows are kind of like the crux of the whole ceremony - everyone’s dying to hear them, especially your fiancé(e)! I’ve always thought it a shame when a groom pulls out a folded piece of notebook paper to recite his vows. I have to admit, though - it is quite heartfelt to think of your fiancé slaving away over his words of promise, number 2 nibbled to pieces, whittled to the eraser, and stuck behind his ear!

Still, everything else in the wedding is planned in detail - shouldn’t the presentation of your vows be equally beautiful?

Plus, there’s the rest of the ceremony - will our officiant read from memory? From a 3-ring binder? From a folder?

Ever since I saw this picture (below), I knew it would be the perfect volume to contain our vows and the words (that we’re going to write!) from our ceremony.

source

The only issue is the sticker price - it’s well worth the $80 tag, but a bit steep for me.
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Reader loralie wore classy midnight satin peep-toe shoes with her wedding dress.

Keep on loading your inspirational wedding pics to the gallery to see them featured here on the blog! Remember, your images must be under 1MB in size, or they won’t load.

I’ve had my wedding ring since Mr. Mary Jane proposed, but the time has come to get serious about finding Mr. Mary Jane a wedding ring. He’s not a flashy guy, so he’s not in it for the bling. But he doesn’t necessarily want to settle for the cheapest, plainest possible band available, either. So we basically wanted to find something in between these two styles:

First of all, have you noticed how much harder it is to find men’s rings to gawk at online than it is to find ladies’? A lot of the sites we went to only had a handful of different men’s styles. Finally, I stumbled upon Jewelry Vortex. We’re planning to buy Mr. Mary Jane’s ring from River City Jewelers (the same local jewelry store where we got mine), but Mr. Mary Jane needed some inspirations to figure out what styles he likes. Jewelry Vortex had hundreds of men’s styles, categorized by metal and design. Perfect for a couple of window-shoppers! (The source for all of the images in this post is Jewelery Vortex.)
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An invitation vacation — that’s what my bridesmaid Honey Bunny kept calling our spring break getaway.

An eclectic group left Columbus, Ohio a few months ago for Myrtle Beach. Included in this posse were my mother, my 18-year old brother and one of his friends from school, Honey Bunny and her mother, myself, and the pieces of all 113 wedding invitations.

Each invitation will consist of:

1. a kraft paper envelope

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Last week marked a momentous occasion — and an exciting few days — in the Bruschetta household: My mister became a doctor!*

Dr./Mr. Bruschetta has worked immensely hard, tacking on this three-year physical therapy program immediately after his undergraduate degree, and working multiple (at times, up to five) part-time jobs while maintaining magna cum laude full-time student status. He’s financed both his B.S. and DPT degrees himself (with the help of a whole lotta loans) and as a result, is incredibly organized and resourceful — which, of course, has proved helpful during the wedding planning!
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I remember when Mr. Peng and I first moved in together. It was a couple years before we got engaged, and I had fresh thoughts in my mind about being the perfect “housewife”. I worked a normal schedule, but when I was able to come home, I cooked, I cleaned, I made a point to play a good female role in the home. (You just vomited, I’m sorry.) I’d grown up embracing traditional gender roles. My mom was a housewife, and my dad the breadwinner. Even though I worked, I still thought it was appropriate for me to do the lady things and for Mr. Peng to be a dude. Quitting work was never something I wanted to do, as I enjoy my financial freedom. But I still thought it was appropriate for me to do the chick things, and for him take care of the technical and manly aspects of our relationship.

The years rolled on, and let me tell you, this chick stuff is exhausting. The novelty of it all wore off quite some time ago. I find very little joy in coming home after a long week and asking my husband to lift up his feet while I vacuum the rug under him. So, I just do all of it much, much less than I used to. Plus, living in a condo, there isn’t exactly a ton of manly stuff that needs to get done around here. No lawn to mow, no holes to be dug, no big random things that need to be hauled around. We don’t even have to drag our trash out to the street; someone does it for us. So, naturally, some of the chick jobs should be passed onto my husband, right?

Family sitcoms throughout the ages have joked about how attentive and “useful” women are before they get married, and how it quickly falls apart once marriage enters the picture. My unsuspecting husband has fallen victim to this same comedic phenomenon.
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